Prophecy by Jüri Kolk

Translated by Adam Cullen ELM 2/2016

Prophecy –
Jüri Kolk

An oracle proclaimed to a Theban king
that he would live a long and happy life —
not one younger kinsman would slay him.
We would never have heard of him otherwise,
of course, but that prophecy set the
other kings into such a spin that they struck
him dead, the bastard. And they tortured
him cruelly beforehand. Such a prophecy
was unheard-of in Greece — it simply had
to be drowned in blood at inception;
then, when it was still young; before it
had grown into a manner of thinking.